Coinbase Ventures and a16z's CSX bring Skyfire's total funding raised to $9.5 million

Coinbase Ventures and the a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator (CSX) announced it contributed new strategic funding to the AI-focused payment firm Skyfire.

The fresh contribution increases Skyfire's total seed funding to $9.5 million, up from its previous raise of $8.5 million. That previous round, announced on Aug. 21, saw participation from Neuberger Berman, Brevan Howard Digital, Intersection Growth Partners, DRW, Inception Capital, Arrington Capital, RedBeard Ventures, Sfermion, Circle, FBG, Gemini, Crossbeam Venture Partners, EveryRealm, Draper Associates, ARCA and Ripple.

Skyfire is building the infrastructure that lets AI agents make autonomous payments, eschewing a human intermediary. Skyfire gives the AI agent a unique digital wallet, and human users can pre-load the wallet with the stablecoin USDC or traditional bank rails, according to information shared with The Block. AI agents are programs powered by artificial intelligence that can perform tasks or answer questions. 

“Skyfire is essentially Visa for the AI economy — that is an incredibly powerful piece of infrastructure that will be critical to the success of AI Agents. Without it, Agents are just window shopping,” said Skyfire Co-Founder Craig DeWitt in a statement. “Traditional payment rails were never built to transact at AI scale, globally, instantly, and at fractions of a penny, which is what makes our approach to verifiable agent identities and USDC transactions so transformative.”

USDC maintains 26.9% of the total Ethereum stablecoin supply as of Oct. 22, according to The Block's Data Dashboard.